Rebuilding

 Hi. I don’t know if you are tired of hearing from me. I guess if you are then you aren’t reading this! I think my writing tends to be melancholy and too emotional. I also have poor grammar and I like to write like I am having a face to face conversation with you. This is not always good because the way it sounds in my head and how I say it could be totally different than how you read it or how it comes across. That could be bad and is why I try to have a vague tone with certain things because I can’t put the full back story each time and ..... ok anyways, moving on. Also I ramble. Just ask anyone. I'm sure that can be annoying. (wink)

    ok, so this is Murchison Falls on the Nile river. The same Nile river that turned to blood for 3 days and where Moses was kept in basket! Not the same place - that was all much further upstream! But still, it's the NILE river!!!

Soooo....let’s talk about rebuilding. That’s where we are in life. I guess I should say that's where I am. I can't always speak for Brent. God gave us about a year and six months just to get us ready to inform us we were moving overseas for six months. Let's be honest, I know we aren’t supposed to compare, but six months is NOTHING when you see how long most people stay overseas. I mean, it’s barely even a blip on the timeline! 

Upon returning, the word "rebuilding" first appeared by writing in my journal in July. 

In September it came again. Brent and I took a vacation - just us - to Gatlinburg. 

Rebuilding involves plans and I need to know "the plan".   

Even though, Brent and I are very "fly by the seat of our pants" kind of people, we have other people in our life to think about now. We have moved about every 3 to 4 years of our marriage. We've been married for 16 years. I think we are at a point where our kids needed some stability. I mean, we already moved them to 2 different countries!

Kids need a secure foundation, roots, and room to grow those roots. I wanted them to have a place to grow up, best friends, a church youth group, all the things. The only problem was that Brent didn’t have a job yet. 

About the end of August, I realized our kids were getting pretty settled. I also realized that there was always the possibility of moving. I asked the girls one Sunday on the way to church what they thought if daddy got a job at another church or if we had to move. That was not popular question. I already knew the answers I was going to get before I asked it. I just wanted to confirm. Moving, anywhere, was greatly frowned upon by the children. 

How could we get settled if we didn't know where we were going? It is too much to explain here about the path I/we have been on the past few years and how God has used the Bible and the stories of the people in there to speak to me about the circumstances going on in our lives. That is better saved for in-person conversations. (And if I wrote it all here, I am sure some would possibly say that I was reading into things.) 

I wanted our trip to Gatlinburg to be a prayer retreat. I have never been on a prayer retreat before. I didn't know exactly what all to do. So like everything else, I Googled it! You'll be glad to know that everything I found was all useful. There were lots of ideas and experiences online. I tried to make sure what I was reading were all reputable people. Some ideas for prayer retreats were: fasting from different things, listening to sermons, setting aside certain prayer times, doing particular Bible studies related to what you were praying thru.  Taking hikes or sitting quietly, listening to music, and journaling were also suggested. The ideas go on.  With a 5 hour drive, I thought we could listen to  at least two sermons. I picked two from a sermon series on Nehemiah. We wound up going back to the start of the series and listening to the entire thing through-out the rest of the week. It was so good and so fitting. 

I had always hear people tell about the things God revealed to them on prayer retreats, etc. I was basically determined to hear from God that week. No matter what it was, I was ready. It was so important to me that I started praying about the prayer retreat before we left!

On the morning before we left, I got a phone call from the current youth minister at our church saying that there was a possibility that God was sending him elsewhere. I had hung up the phone and sat there a minute before I realized that there would be a job opening and that Brent would be perfect for the job. We talked about it on the way up to Gatlinburg that night and I tried to stuff my hopes down because I didn't want to get ahead of God. My mind sometimes has it's own random thoughts and sometimes I don't know if it is a thought from God or if it's just my wild imagination. That was Monday. The next day, Tuesday, Brent had a Zoom meeting with some friends about working with their organization. We didn't know if that would be a go ahead or not.

But after the meeting, it seemed as plain as day that everything was a go. It might take awhile to get it up and running, but it would happen. 

I didn’t really know what to do at that point. We still had a few days of our prayer retreat and basically God had already answered my questions.  I didn't google what to do when God answers your prayers early in the trip! I my mind, I guess I thought it would be Thursday or Friday, but before we could even get going, BAM! there it was.  So, I decided just to keep praying. The rest of our trip was, well, very restful. We took a drives, kept listening to our sermon series, read a book, went on a hike, I took a nap everyday. It was the best. I would totally recommend prayer retreats. 

Nehemiah is about rebuilding and leadership. And that's where we have landed. Rebuilding our lives here - at the church we attend, where Brent is now the part-time youth minister. In the house we are renting. I tried so hard not rent this house, but it is my favorite house we have lived in our married lives. It's the perfect house for our family and what we are hoping to do in the future. Rebuilding where the girls attend a school I never thought they would attend. Rebuilding our relationship with Ben, even though he lives with his grandparents. This is the right thing for him and our family. It has been a blessing all the way around. 

But did you know that rebuilding can be slow? At least, it FEELS slow. It did work out pretty quickly for Nehemiah, but he had different circumstances. Maybe I am just slow at getting into things. Rebuilding is hard. Nehemiah faced some opposition in his rebuilding of the wall. We aren't really facing any pressing opposition, but starting again is hard. Sometimes rebuilding doesn’t even look like you're doing anything. It looks like a mess and looks like you don’t know what you are doing.  Some days you even forget exactly what you’re rebuilding and why you're bothering to rebuild in the first place. Rebuilding is an adventure. There are so many possibilities. So many places to go. So many things to do. So many people to meet!

What doesn't surprise me much is that rebuilding is a LOT of work.  I knew that after our season of rest would come a season of work. I just didn't know the details back then. With rebuilding, you make mistakes. Sometimes you even make the same mistakes you made before! Usually this is without meaning too or because you think it might be different this time with a different set of circumstances! Have. mercy. 

 ----Side note, I said that to a guy once in Africa. His response was, "Oh I have so many mercies!" I laughed because I didn't mean it literally, but my meaning didn't cross over well there. It is a favorite memory now, it reminds me of Jesus and we are to have "so many mercies", like He does. Thank You Jesus for mercy. ----

Back to rebuilding, the slowness of rebuilding is frustrating and feels like you’re sitting duck. You know what I mean? Sitting still in motionless water, in the middle of a big lake, with 400 different directions you could swim to. Maybe you've heard the other ducks calling, so you know it's right the direction. But it’s foggy and you aren’t sure exactly how to proceed, so you just sit and wait for the fog to clear because you don't want to make a mistake and wind up paddling yourself into a duck blind!

Someone said that if you aren't sure what to do, you just keep doing whatever God told you to do last, until He gives you something else. That is a paraphrase and I want to say Henry Blackaby said it, but I can't find it. You understand what I'm saying. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for something else. We just started here! I guess I'm anxious to get the going on the road. I know we are here to rebuild. I do not mean that our lives were torn down or apart in a bad way. But torn down to where we got to know God differently and see Him and His world a little differently. He is doing the work of rebuilding us. It feels more like we were given a new life. A chance to start over with a little bit of a different direction. 

Do we miss our life in Africa? Very much. It's funny how much can change in a super short time period. Do we love our life back here? Also very much. 

I'm thankful to have been where we have been and I am thankful to be where we are now. 

If you want the greatest adventure of your life, it will cost you everything. But that adventure comes with a breathtaking view (thank you Greatest Showman for being so poetic!). So we will gladly rebuild and invest our lives here (and there) for what we hope is a long time.